


Touch

by mooyani



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-03-12 15:05:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13549863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mooyani/pseuds/mooyani
Summary: Steve Rogers is touched starved.





	Touch

Touch is important. It connects us, grounds us. Calms us. 

Steve hasn't been grounded since his mother died; not that things had been stable before, it was the Great Depression after all, but that was the only time in his life he really knew what home was. The touch, the physical contact..no one offered that to him but Bucky, with the occasional arm slung over his shoulders, a friend. Support. 

It wasn't ever enough, and maybe that's what drove him to those back alleys, getting his face punched in by guys twice his side. He was mad. Mad at them for doing whatever terrible thing it was a man did this time to make Steve speak up, and mad that he always walked home with a sense of calm, even as his nose bled. 

When he enlisted, there was touch again, though it was clinical. Clinical hurt more than the punches. It was softer, it burned, and afterward he was tall enough to finally look people in the eyes, but no one would meet his gaze. They were too busy with the rest of him.

Then the USO tour. Shaking hands, being clapped on the back, paraded around in front of cameras. Touch. Or...it felt more like noise. Static. Women approached him. Smiled at him, whispered obscene things to him when no one was looking, touched his arms. It was exciting the first time; she was blonde, beautiful, and she absolutely beamed when she met his eyes, looking up at him. Women never looked up at him before. Most had been taller than him. He wasn't sure he liked it better this way.

The first time he rushes into a fight with his new body, he actually feels alive. The sting and exhaustion after. Bringing Bucky home. All of it is a rush. It's short lived, like all his highs.

There was Lorraine. His first actual kiss. She wasn't who he wanted. She wasn't Peggy. She wasn't Bucky. She wasn't a punch to the gut. But she was forceful like one, and he was thrown by his own reaction to it.

Peggy.

Peggy had been a goodbye. A farewell kiss. Shared. That meant something to him.

After the crash, the next time he felt warmth or touch was when he was being thawed out by gloved scientists holding heat wands. He only remembers bits and pieces now; washed and undressed and re-dressed in false clothing. No control over himself. That's okay. He doesn't belong to himself anyway. The army taught him that.

Nat. Strategy and deception. Maybe a friend. She'd kissed him. But that was fieldwork; what stood out to Steve more was the hug she'd given him at Peggy's funeral. His first hug in...

He tried with Sharon. He did. He was supposed to. She was beautiful and good and had what he'd been conditioned to see as a rare quality in women: interest in him. He hasn't heard from her since, and that's more comforting than he wants it to be.

So Steve throws himself into work. Helping others, saving people, doing good -- following his drive to do the right thing. He jumps out of planes without parachutes and he rushes into poisonous gas 

And if now and then he lets someone land a punch just so he can feel the touch of skin on skin, he prays it goes unnoticed.


End file.
